HOW TO AVOID THE COMFORT EATERS CYCLE OF INSANITY

How’s your New Year resolution holding up? It’s the end of the month and a time when mine is usually slipping into oblivion! I was thinking earlier about what it is that usually happens to my motivation and resolve as I get further into the year. The answer (for me anyway) is life and its stresses.

As a life time comfort eater, I have finally accepted that breaking my resolution has nothing to do with lack of will power and everything to do with what happens in my mind. Take a look at the cycle below. This is what happens to me. Is it the same for you?

It’s a vicious circle that the recent ‘Trust Me I’m a Doctor’ programme on BBC showed that for Comfort Eaters, when stress and depression kick in a part of our brain becomes over active. This is the part that regulates our ability to regulate when and how much we eat. 
 

This does not mean we should use the fact that our brains are wired differently as an excuse. It is an opportunity to identify how we can stop this happening in our brains. And the answer is – we work at keeping stress at bay. The fact is, the happier we are the less we reach out for food.

Stepping off this cycle of insanity is therefore about finding ways to love yourself. Think about it for a minute. When we love someone and they are feeling down, do we judge and criticise them more? Do we ignore them? Would this be loving and kind? Then why do we do it to ourselves? I believe it's becaus we believe we do not deserve to be loved by ourselves.

What utter nonsense! Food is fuel for our body, it is not a long term comforter. It is time to take action for ourselves to reduce our stress levels, increase our happiness, fill us with joy and ‘Feed Our Souls’ NOT our bellies!

This is the key to breaking the Comfort Eating Cycle of Insanity; SELF-LOVE. Don’t wait for others to help you out of the cycle, start to take action for yourself. It’s time to become your own best friend.

This is a tool I now use that is helping me stay on track and away from comfort eating. I make a personal choice of what it is that will ‘Feed My Soul’ and because I now believe I deserve to love myself abundantly, I take action. Sometimes I watch an uplifting film or TV programme, listen to music that makes me feel great, do some exercise to lift my energy and happiness levels. 

Whatever it is you choose to do it must make you feel energised, happy and at peace with yourself. Does this mean I have conquered my comfort eating? Heck no! It takes a long time to change how the brain works. However, I have found a new tool, for my toolkit. It will help me manage my comfort eating more effectively. The great thing is, when we change our actions and our thought processes it gradually creates positive changes in the brain.